Monday, March 4, 2013

Lana and Andy Wachowski are facing a lawsuit for the sequels to "The Matrix." The plaintiff claims that the filmmakers stole his ideas for the film, and has sued them for $300 million, it was reported on Monday.

It's unclear why Thomas Althouse would want credit for the sequels. After all, the films saw their Tomatometer score drop from the original film's 87 percent to 73 percent for "The Matrix Reloaded" and 36 percent for "The Matrix Revolutions."

Critical acclaim or not, Thomas Althouse filed the lawsuit against the sibling producers. He claims they took ideas for "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions" from his script for "The Immortals." He added that "The Immortals" to Warner Bros. back in 1993, but never heard back. Indeed "The Matrix" trilogy came from Warner Bros.

It has been about 10 years since the two sequels appeared, so why did Althouse wait a decade? He said that the long delay is easily explained: he only watched the trilogy, which starred Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Laurence Fishburne, in 2010. The suit claims copyright infringement, and includes Lana and Andy Wachowski, Warner Bros. and producer Joel Silver.

Althouse, it seems, isn't suing for the storyline. Rather, he feels that ideas were stolen from his script, including the plugs in the back of characters' necks that were used to plug in to the Matrix, "agents: in suits and people trapped at a train station.

Although the "Matrix" franchise was a huge success, not all the Wachowskis touch turns to goal. Their most recent blockbuster, "Cloud Atlas," turned out to be a flop. It had an estimated budget of $102 million, but only brought in $114.9 million globally, with a mere $27.1 million domestically.